• “I was curious to learn more about an area I was unfamiliar with – sustainability and how that plays a role in business. Admittedly, I do not have a green thumb, some could say maybe the opposite.”
Hi there! My name is Ashley Qiu, and I am working with Michael Mobbs of Sydney’s Sustainable House and Coolseats for the next 6 weeks, til the end of February 2023.
I am a third-year college student studying Business at the United States University of Michigan. I am passionate about ethical business and have been particularly drawn to social impact and corporate social responsibility.
There are two main reasons that drew me to this internship.
Firstly, I was curious to learn more about an area I was unfamiliar with – sustainability and how that plays a role in business. Admittedly, I do not have a green thumb, some could say maybe the opposite. My father has his own garden and uses compost to produce delicious fruits and veggies that I enjoy eating, but that is the extent of my interactions with gardening and composting. Growing up, I would go with my father to his garden but was deterred by the heat and bugs and didn’t understand the appeal of what he was doing. So my second reason for joining Michael in his work is that I wanted to try again and be more engaged with Earth.
On my first day, I met Michael at his home. I learned when preparing for my internship about how much energy and money he has saved with his sustainable house during our initial virtual call, but it was exciting to see what he was describing to me in person. Something that stuck out, in particular, was when he pointed to the black power lines that were all connected to his neighbors' homes, while his was the only one that was not attached. His home fully functions well on its own and does not need to rely on the government provided energy.
Chippendale, a small suburb beside the central business district of Sydney, has over 1,000 fruit trees, herbs and edible plants in its footpath gardens. Anyone may garden in the footpath there and across the city area without a formal approval under a far-sighted council policy which has enabled the community there and elsewhere to transform the streets into cool, inviting and community-building places which give pleasure and have strong support.
Michael briefly introduced me to the tools we would be using to maintain the compost bins and the coolseats – a Ho-mi and compost auger. I had not seen these types of tools before, so it was fun to be using new devices. After that, we immediately went to work! He told me he was going to throw me into the deep end, and boy was he right! The extent of my gardening experience was bringing the produce my dad cut from his garden back to our home, and I made sure I stayed away from the smelly compost, too. Ironically, the first thing Michael had me do was to transfer the compost from the bin it was stored inside of to one of his earlier models of the coolseats as pictured below.
• Using the Homi to scrape compost from one overflowing bin to a coolseat- the green curly metal thing leaning against a stack of worm farm compost bins in the background is the compost auger
• I transferred food waste from a rotating compost bin to a nearby square compost bin and I also tidied up the loose access hatch which had become undone
Although I was smiling in the photos, I was feeling squeamish from the insane amount of wormy larvae of black soldier flies crawling throughout the soil. (Michael said they are more effective than worms at reducing the food waste to compost.) It seemed as if there were more of them than the dirt itself! There were also a lot of earthworms and other insects wriggling around. But I started to think about how although these might not be the most beautiful insects in the world, they definitely are one of the most crucial. Without any of these creepy crawlies, we would not have the soil to grow our food and break down the waste that we create. This made me begin to relearn how to appreciate nature and what it has to offer despite my apprehensions.
After reallocating the compost, Michael showed me how to use the auger to mix the soil around. This balances the soil’s moisture level because we are mixing the dirt’s dry and wet levels to become more evenly distributed. This reminded me of baking and how a cookie will not taste as good if the ingredients were not properly mixed. The soil will not be as healthy and efficient if it is not properly mixed.
As I was augering, Michael would add shredded paper to the particularly moist compost piles. This helps by adding more dryness to the soil. I thought this was fascinating because not only is compost beneficial for food waste purposes, but also a way we can end paper waste and use it to grow compost and soil.
• Michael adding a layer of shredded paper on top of the compost in the coolseat
Once we were done with that, we covered the compost with a potato sack and closed the seat bench. This was also a fun learning for me because I did not know the benefits of a potato sack aside from holding potatoes. The sacks protect the worms and encourage them to travel to the top of the compost pile because they shield out light, which worms avoid. Re-using these hessian sacks from Chippendale’s Cafe Guilia reduces the cafe’s waste and puts the sacks to a good use - they also decay into and become part of the compost.
• Cafe Giulia provides their potato sacks to be used in the cool seats
On our final stop at Cafe Giulia, I met the owner, Stefan, and the first thing he said to Michael was how the tomatoes that were growing from the coolseats were the best tomatoes he has ever had in Australia. And when we went inside to order food, another employee also mentioned to Michael how delicious and amazing the tomatoes were. Hearing such a concrete example of a community benefiting from the coolseats added to the many reasons why this project is so wonderful. Michael sent me home with lemon tree leaves grown from one of the coolseats to use in my cooking, so I am excited to try them and enjoy them as much as Cafe Giulia has with its tomatoes!
• The famous delicious tomatoes outside Cafe Giulia which grows in the coolseats
• Three coolseats outside Cafe Guilia
As we enjoyed a refreshing freshly-made fruit juice after a hard day’s work, Michael and I talked about the amount of carbon pollution of our Earth’s air (CO2-equivalent emissions) I had saved from only one day of work. I can only imagine how much I will be saving by the time this internship concludes!
• Cafe Giulia’s Beetroot, pineapple, orange and passion fruit juice
• My screenshot of the coolseats calculator – I found that the 100 kg of food ‘waste’ I was making into compost prevented 150 kg of harmful emissions going into our Earth’s air
When I first learned about the coolseats on my first day of footpath gardening I loved how they turned something unappealing into something aestheticaly pleasing. These benches have flowers and plants that grow beautifully due to the compost hidden beneath the seats. It also is a nod to what goes on beneath the surface in which we do not know about but benefit immensely from.
As we were going around town tending to the compost, I noticed how this is a great way to engage your community. There were many curious eyes watching us as we were working, and neighbors making comments about how they recently contributed to the bench’s compost. And obviously, anyone is welcome to sit on the benches!
This was definitely a 10/10 first day.
I was able to step out of my comfort zone, try something that I thought I would always stay away from, and initiate a newfound appreciation for the natural world. I learned so much through the physical work I did but also took away a lot from the unexpected happenings that came along as a side effect. It was fun to see the progression of the design of each set of coolseats improving from street to street because it was like a physical display of the time and effort put into developing better and better models. I cannot wait to continue this learning and growing experience, and I’m excited to say that I’m seeing my thumb turn a little bit greener!
Ashley Qiu